A Blank Page
by analine
Summary: Ianto visits his father's grave. Jack follows him.  post-Exit Wounds  Jack/Ianto. One-shot.


**Title:** A Blank Page  
**Pairing/Characters:** Jack/Ianto  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** takes place post-Exit Wounds, so spoilers through the end of S2  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** ~2060  
**Summary:** Ianto visits his father's grave. Jack follows him.

**Notes:** This is a birthday fic for Sariagray! It starts out a little dark, but gets better, I promise. ^_~

* * *

Ianto stares down at the patch of grass in front of him.

It's overgrown, a little weedy even, though it's only been what, five, six years? He sighs, and the sound is swallowed up by the vastness around him. Cemeteries are nothing if not vast, after all.

Coming here had been a little misguided, he realizes, staring forward. A bit of a bait and switch.

Because he's not thinking of his father now, not really, isn't having some sort of revelation about what he should have done differently, about lost years, or how he should have come here sooner.

Instead he's thinking of Tosh, of Owen.

How they'd given their lives for this. For this grey sky above his head, this dirty grass, this city. Him. _Jack._ How he'd do the same someday, and how his decay would be just as slow, just as largely meaningless.

He's anxious. Has been for weeks, though he's not really sure why. Uncertainty, he supposes. The whole Not Knowing What Comes Next.

He stares down at the engraving on the small stone. 'Beloved', it reads, in Welsh, but he can't really be bothered to read the rest, to see if what comes after is 'son' or maybe 'husband', 'father', even. Doesn't matter, he thinks, shrugging up at the large oak tree next to the row of graves.

He pulls a lone cigarette from his jacket pocket, as planned, and then the complimentary package of matches he'd swiped from the petrol station. He doesn't actually smoke, of course, not anymore - this is more of an offering, maybe, like one of those little white candles, coins clinking together inside a collection tin - and he's about to strike a match, when he feels a familiar presence come up behind him, a large hand on his shoulder, and an even larger coat, flapping behind them in the breeze.

"You could have just asked to come along," he says, and lights the match. He doesn't wait for Jack's reaction before he brings the cigarette to his lips and takes a long pull, blowing the smoke out in front of his face unceremoniously, as he continues, "You know, instead of following me."

"Sorry," Jack says softly. His eyes are wide as he stares at Ianto in the soft, late afternoon light. "Bad habit."

"Yeah, well," Ianto says, taking a long pull on the cigarette. "It's kind of creepy."

But he smiles as he hands the cigarette to Jack, who stares at it for a moment before meeting Ianto's eyes, and taking it from his fingers, inhaling, long and slow. He looks like he's enjoying it, and Ianto's smile widens a little.

"So what is this, some kind of tradition?" Jack says, handing the cigarette back to Ianto, and gesturing to the grave marker. "Not an anniversary, so…"

Ianto just shakes his head as he takes another long drag on the cigarette, then offers it to Jack again, who declines.

He stares up at the sky, and then down at the stone, looking through it more than at it, really, before he throws the cigarette onto the ground in front of him. This isn't for pleasure, after all; he doesn't care if he wastes it.

He watches the orange light on the end spark a little and then turn to grey ash before he presses it into the ground with his toe.

It hadn't been for pleasure, and that's a good thing, Ianto thinks, because the cigarette had done nothing to calm his anxiety, nothing to relax him, nothing to make him forget that the great institution of Torchwood now consisted of three people, faced with a task that had started out impossible, and only felt more impossible with each passing day.

Maybe he's not supposed to be relaxed. Maybe it really is just an offering. A quiet tribute. To remember what had been lost. Jack's presence usually calmed him more than anything else could anyway. Usually.

Jack is watching him quietly, now. Jack does a lot of things quietly these days, and sometimes, in moments like this, it fills Ianto with such cold dread, seeping into his bones, stiff and awkward, that he wants to scream.

Instead he sighs, and kicks at the ground, watching his cigarette butt flop over, as a leaf shifts, covering it like it was never there. The ground is just a tiny bit too pliant under the soles of his shoes, and Ianto suddenly remembers why he hates it here.

"This is the first time I've been here," he says, nodding in the general direction of the stone. "I don't even remember the date. That he died."

Jack chuckles, but it sounds hollow, distant. "That's generally why they do markers."

"I don't want to look at it," Ianto admits. "It hardly matters now, anyway."

"But you came."

"And you followed me."

Jack is silent, again, and Ianto searches his brain for something, anything, to say, and when he comes up blank he finds himself reaching for Jack's hand, and even though this isn't something that they do, normally - holding hands - Jack doesn't bat an eye.

In fact he sort of shifts his hand around in Ianto's until he finds a comfortable clasp, making it obvious that this is what they're doing, now - holding _hands._ Then Jack rubs his thumb across Ianto's wrist, and the gesture is so undeniably tender that it stops Ianto mid-thought, mid…everything, really. He moves a little closer until his shoulder is pressed up against Jack's. Tries to let the calm of Jack's presence seep into him like it usually does. It doesn't really work, but he stays there anyway.

"I couldn't look at Lisa's, either," he says eventually.

Jack just squeezes his hand.

"I should be better at this," Ianto says quietly, honestly. A little angrily.

"Me, too," Jack says softly, and he brings their clasped hands to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against the back of Ianto's hand. "I've had more practice, after all."

Ianto closes his eyes, and a cold breeze ruffles up and under his coat. He shivers.

"I've missed you," Jack says, staring forward, and Ianto's heart nearly stops, because god, he's missed Jack, too. So much that it's been driving him mad, to be honest.

He's not sure he ever considered that the feeling might be mutual.

His heart swells with it for a moment, but it's too weird, being here, feeling this. And then the anxiety returns, builds, comes to a head.

Ianto drops Jack's hand with a mumbled, "We should go."

He doesn't exactly wait for Jack to follow him, but he knows that he's behind him, and after five minutes of brisk walking, past rows of graves, and trees, and markers and statues, they're back in the car park. Jack's SUV is parked right next to Ianto's car, which always looks so tiny in comparison, and Ianto stops in front of them, his hands on his hips, almost out of breath. For a second he can't decide which one to move towards.

His heart is pounding in his ears.

He stares at Jack, who has stopped exactly between both vehicles too, and then says, as if continuing their conversation from before, "I missed you too."

He doesn't even bother to catch his breath, just moves towards Jack and kisses him, steadies Jack's jaw with his hands, and walks them back until he's able to lean his side against the SUV, not caring about the dust coating the windows, the door. He just presses his lips against Jack's, his breath stuttering and uneven, his heart thumping wildly.

He doesn't remember how long it's been since they've done this, things have been so crazy since Owen and Tosh died, but he thinks maybe it's been a long time. They're both being greedy, both pushing too hard, going too fast.

And _god_, Jack's mouth tastes like cigarettes and it's so strange, but everything else is so familiar he just wants to _drown_ himself in it. Jack's hands are clutching at his neck, his back – clinging - and Jack's breath is coming in short little bursts against his neck, his nose, his lips.

Ianto feels clumsy, out of practice as his tongue slides along Jack's, but slowly, gradually, they find a rhythm and eventually, after a few false starts, they stick to it, get lost in it. It feels amazing, like coming back to life, like waking up suddenly from a dream.

"God, Ianto," Jack is saying against his lips, "I missed you so much," and he sounds so serious, Ianto doesn't know what to say, so he just kisses him again.

There's no one else around, no other cars, and so they stay like this, uninterrupted, bothered only by the occasional gust of wind, though Jack's coat bears most of it.

Eventually Jack pulls away, just stares at Ianto for a long moment, shakes his head affectionately, and when he goes round to the driver's side and climbs in, without thinking Ianto hops into the passenger seat next to him.

"We can come get it tomorrow," Jack says, nodding in the direction of Ianto's car, and when Jack starts up the SUV, Ianto feels a wave of relief wash over him - Jack, taking him home, Jack, showing up in the nick of time, again.

Jack talks as he drives, and he sounds calm, more calm than he's seemed in the past few weeks, as he tells Ianto about his plans for recruitment, about the changes he's going to make to their schedules, about how irreplaceable Tosh and Owen are, but how they will have to replace them anyway, because it was all getting to be too much for three people.

And then he says, his voice turning resolute, and firm, "I've been thinking a lot lately, and if you ever wanted to—you know," he hesitates, as if he doesn't want to actually say the words. "I want you to know that I'm in a position where I can…break some rules," he finishes with a meaningful nod.

"Meaning you wouldn't retcon me," Ianto says, knowing exactly what he means, of course.

"Right. Meaning nothing would have to change. With us."

"Us…"

"Yeah," Jack says quietly.

Ianto smiles a little. "Well, the answer is still no."

"I figured," Jack says, and Ianto could be imagining it, but he sounds a little relieved. "No, I knew. But I had to ask anyway."

"Right," Ianto says.

"Maybe you could keep it in mind though? Just in case."

"Sure," he says. "But the truth is I love working for you far too much to ever give it up."

Jack smiles a little at this. "So the problem is me?"

"Oh yeah," Ianto says. "Absolutely. And since you're obviously not going anywhere anytime soon…"

"Neither are you?"

"Bingo."

Jack pauses, smiles fondly. "I really did miss you."

To that Ianto just nods, and stares out at the road, wondering idly how long it will be until they're back in Cardiff proper.

The lights come into view soon enough though, and he stares at Jack's profile, at the lights behind it, how they glimmer through the glass, just hanging there in stasis as the SUV carries them closer and closer to home.

The sun is setting, and Ianto thoughts turn a little philosophical – he thinks about ashes, about dust, about _Jack_, buried so far below Cardiff for so, so long, missing _him_, about what that means, about how they'll ever be able to replace what's been lost, but still…

He feels better. For whatever it's worth.

He sees the future, and it's a little bleak, sure but…

"Jack," he says suddenly. "When you think of the future, what do you see?"

Jack doesn't say anything for a while. The lights are closing in on them beyond the dashboard, beyond the glass, flickering closer and closer.

"Honestly?" he says finally. "I don't see anything." Then he shakes his head. "I don't mean that the world's ended, or anything like that. It's just that I can't see it. I can't predict it at all."

"A blank page…"

"Yeah, something like that," Jack says.

"Hmm," Ianto says, imagining a sea of white, stretching out before them, swallowing up everything in its path. It's nice; he thinks he'll hold onto the image for a while.

"Me, too," Ianto admits, and in the growing darkness, he searches for Jack's hand.

* * *

**end**


End file.
